What is the difference between a guitar player and a musician who plays guitar?

[Abe]

What is the difference between a guitar player and a musician who plays guitar?   

1. A musician reads the language of all musicians. A guitar player reads tab.

2. A musician plays music that touches music lovers. A guitar player shows off for other guitar players.

3. A musician listens to good music no matter the instrumentation. A guitar player listens to guitar players.

4. A musician discusses how and why music touches the listener. A guitar player discusses strings, picks, amps and effects.
 
5. A musician understands how all parts of an ensemble fit together to create music. A guitar player just turns up so everyone can hear him.

6. A musician understands the beauty of a few well selected notes. A guitar player just wants to play fast.

7. A musician can find work. A guitar player sits at home playing fast and fuming because nobody ever calls him.

[SanctifiedGuitar]

I agree 100%...

a guitarist should be a musician that plays the guitar.

[GRIP805]

A GUITAR PLAYER THINKS ONLY OF WHAT HE/SHE IS DOING

A MUSICIAN THAT PLAYS GUITAR THINKS ABOUT WHAT THE BAND IS DOING

[Sonar]

This is all pretty funny coming considering this site specializes in a gospel community that largely don't read "the language of all musicians".

In the old days, it was the piano players that could read music.

Don't count on THAT anymore. 


This explanation could explain why I never see a music stand in front of Jonathan Dubose. 


And here's ANOTHER guitarist just sitting at home discussing effects and such:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dzgHFz-XoQ

It's SO sad.   

[SanctifiedGuitar]

PJ, jr. can flat out play the guitar  .  He is a true professional.

[jlynnb1]

Flame me if you like...but as in all things, times change and things that were once the best and only way are no longer such...nothing could be truer of standard notation and guitar. I can't think of many things more poorly matched. Tab is a wonderful update on that not because it teaches you to cheat, but because it helps with neck position/fret, etc. now some may enjoy experimenting with sheet music, figuring out the best way to play....but I never feel like less of a musician because I can't sight read for guitar. (i can do ok on it with piano) I guarantee you if the same person who came up with sheet music were commissioned today to come up with a musical language for guitar...it would look NOTHING like standard notation.

[SanctifiedGuitar]

Flame me if you like...but as in all things, times change and things that were once the best and only way are no longer such...nothing could be truer of standard notation and guitar. I can't think of many things more poorly matched. Tab is a wonderful update on that not because it teaches you to cheat, but because it helps with neck position/fret, etc. now some may enjoy experimenting with sheet music, figuring out the best way to play....but I never feel like less of a musician because I can't sight read for guitar. (i can do ok on it with piano) I guarantee you if the same person who came up with sheet music were commissioned today to come up with a musical language for guitar...it would look NOTHING like standard notation.

Tabs for the guitar was a great idea.

However, to Abe's point, it is also great to know how to read standard notation, too.  I have been caught in situations when I wish I was proficient at it.

I need to spend more time on getting a better grip on music theory.

[Abe]

Wow! This sure fired up the troops this week.

While in the woodshed, add reading sheet music to your plan. To some it's easy; to others it's a challenge so stretch your skill. It could make the difference between getting the gig or not.

I first experienced this years ago when I attempted to audition for the guitar position for a (Peaches & Herb) concert on the campus of Florida State. The music director pulled out the sheet music and asked us to line up and get ready to play.  That was a longest walk across town back to my dorm at the Florida A.M. campus. 

Stick with it and press on.

Abe 

[funkStrat_97]

I'm a musician with guitar player tendencies .

[gtrdave]

Tabs are good if your ear is not well tuned, but tab has gotten a well-deserved bad rep due to the amount of incorrect tab in the public domain and because it offers little in regards to timing references.
I know quite a few guitar players who can play according to tab, yet improvisation is a near impossibility.

Sheet music is good if the music to be played is to be played a specific way and none other. Knowing how to read notation can also open up the possibilities for many paying studio and live gigs.
That said, I know a lot of musicians who can play according to the notation, but improvisation is a near impossibility.

Coincidence? I think not. Our physical bodies are our most important musical asset. Our ears, our hands and feet, our mind/heart/soul/etc are all critical to our abilities as a guitar player or musician.

While I agree with a lot of Abe's points in the original post, it's important to remember that some people can start as a guitar player and develop into being a musician if they are motivated to do so.

[funkStrat_97]

This thread reminds me of something I posted on another fourm a few years ago asking if you are a "guitar diva".  I don't recall exactly what I wrote, but I'll try and remmber and post it here again for your entertainment.

[SanctifiedGuitar]

Music is a language; your audience determines your speech.

A child learns how to talk because of the need to communicate.

If you have a need to communicate with other musicians, you will try to learn that language. 

[DuaneGuitar]

actually alot of times its the other way around. Alot of times the people that can read music and know all there theory can't really play what they feel, they usually sound stiff and untasteful. You don't have to read music to be a musician, and why even have a title of "Musician"?  Is it suppose to make you special? Why not just be a person who expresses themseleves without titles? I've delt with alot of music majors that think just because they got a piece of paper that tells them they know there stuff they think there better than everyone else, but this doesn't mean that reading music isn't important, if you know how to read alot of doors can open up for you and there is alot of good material out there that you will be able to understand if you know how to read, but if you don't know how to read that doesn't make you any less, you still have a soul and you still have a spirit that you can express through an instrument.

[ubc_rown]

I consider a musician someone who can understand what is going on around him. Being a "musician" to me is not necessarily dependent on whether one can read music, or name the parts of his instrument, analyze wave forms, etc., but depending on whether he can comprehend and interpret what is happening at any given time in a musical situation.

That`s Deep

[gtrdave]

...you still have a soul and you still have a spirit that you can express through an instrument.

Yeah, and it might sound like 'playing in tongues', too... 

I do hear what you're saying, though. I claim that there are thee equally important components to playing music: the right notes, the right time and your own personal expression. Take away any one of those and it's usually not pleasing to listen to. Over-emphasize any one of those and it's usually not pleasing to listen to (except maybe for mom or aunt Bessie and deaf uncle Bo).
It's all about balance.

[ed_shaw]

By musician, is that a sight reader, or, someone who has the ability to sight read? Thinking back, some of my most memorable sessions were with musicians who were not readers, but who could follow a groove and key changes, but mainly, could pick up on rhythms and melodies not planned in advance and also adapt to the feeling of the congregation so the congregation and the band were more like one. To me, that was fun.
On the other hand, some of my most frustrating times have been sessions with a leader who could not tell us what key he wanted to play in, maybe didn't even know.
Gospel recordings cover all kinds of styles and levels, from classical, almost operatic, to stuff that sounds like an outright blues jam.
So, while I wish all gospel musicians would learn theory, take lessons, and all that, I would never look down on "keep it simple"
improvisational players, whether the world chooses to recognize their talents or not. All the players I know personally who tour nationally on a hired hand basis learned to sight read piano or violin when they were young.

[ubc_rown]

By musician, is that a sight reader, or, someone who has the ability to sight read? Thinking back, some of my most memorable sessions were with musicians who were not readers, but who could follow a groove and key changes, but mainly, could pick up on rhythms and melodies not planned in advance and also adapt to the feeling of the congregation so the congregation and the band were more like one. To me, that was fun.
On the other hand, some of my most frustrating times have been sessions with a leader who could not tell us what key he wanted to play in, maybe didn't even know.
Gospel recordings cover all kinds of styles and levels, from classical, almost operatic, to stuff that sounds like an outright blues jam.
So, while I wish all gospel musicians would learn theory, take lessons, and all that, I would never look down on "keep it simple"
improvisational players, whether the world chooses to recognize their talents or not. All the players I know personally who tour nationally on a hired hand basis learned to sight read piano or violin when they were young.

I agree,i like that.But,hope you got a football helment.

[JayP5150]

In the same vein as people not knowing what key they are in, it is equally as frustrating to play with people that can't improvise at all.

I used to play with a keyboard player that couldn't do a 2 chord vamp unless she could find it in a book lol.

I don't understand that.

[ed_shaw]

"I agree,i like that.But,hope you got a football helment."

Yeah, ubc, I got the armor on. I started catching it from music teachers when I was in the 6th grade, for making sounds that "were not written on the paper." And, I mean, in the 1950's some serious scolding, no joke.

Take Amazing Grace. I key of Dmaj, one way to play it would be:

one, two, A (a) / maz (d) ing (e) / grace (f#) how (e) /
sweet (d) the (b) / sound (a) that (a) / saved (d) a (e) /
wretch (f#) like (g) / me (a)

If we play it in 3/4 alternating half notes with whole notes,
that's eight bars, I think, with a chord change to Gmaj on
"sweet the" and back to Dmaj on "sound," resolving with a
chord change to Amaj on "me," which is held until the round
starts again, with the "I (a) once was lost"

A jazz player would say the melody starts  5 - 1 - 4 - 3
referring to the positions of the notes in the Dmaj scale,
meaning, the first note, the "a" in "a-maz-ing," which happens
to be an A note, is the 5 note on the scale, and also the
top of the Dmaj chord, DF#A.
As soon as we start seeing things like this and start thinking
a little differently about it, we start to move away from
music being a matter of seeing the note on the paper and
playing it at the right time.

Note that we change key to Gmaj for "sweet the" which is a
D note B note combination, the 5 and the 3 of the G scale,
or, the top and middle of the G chord, which is GBD.

I might be saying that music theory comes into play
as much as sight reading, which can become mechanical
if you don't watch it.
UBC, when you play or sing, I want to hear "you" playing
or singing. Agreed, not everyone feels this way.

[ubc_rown]

"I agree,i like that.But,hope you got a football helment."

Yeah, ubc, I got the armor on. I started catching it from music teachers when I was in the 6th grade, for making sounds that "were not written on the paper." And, I mean, in the 1950's some serious scolding, no joke.

Take Amazing Grace. I key of Dmaj, one way to play it would be:

one, two, A (a) / maz (d) ing (e) / grace (f#) how (e) /
sweet (d) the (b) / sound (a) that (a) / saved (d) a (e) /
wretch (f#) like (g) / me (a)

If we play it in 3/4 alternating half notes with whole notes,
that's eight bars, I think, with a chord change to Gmaj on
"sweet the" and back to Dmaj on "sound," resolving with a
chord change to Amaj on "me," which is held until the round
starts again, with the "I (a) once was lost"

A jazz player would say the melody starts  5 - 1 - 4 - 3
referring to the positions of the notes in the Dmaj scale,
meaning, the first note, the "a" in "a-maz-ing," which happens
to be an A note, is the 5 note on the scale, and also the
top of the Dmaj chord, DF#A.
As soon as we start seeing things like this and start thinking
a little differently about it, we start to move away from
music being a matter of seeing the note on the paper and
playing it at the right time.

Note that we change key to Gmaj for "sweet the" which is a
D note B note combination, the 5 and the 3 of the G scale,
or, the top and middle of the G chord, which is GBD.

I might be saying that music theory comes into play
as much as sight reading, which can become mechanical
if you don't watch it.
UBC, when you play or sing, I want to hear "you" playing
or singing. Agreed, not everyone feels this way.

That`s deep.I feel you